“Me, Myself, I” part of regroup Collective: Ego Dialogue @ Greatorex Street 2023.

Sarah Chalkie Cloonan, a London-based artist, likes her paintings to be read as documents of exploration. Eyes closed, she floats, creating ‘memento vivere’ in her head; they remind her what it is she cherishes about life. As she moves through this twilight zone above the ground, she is free to explore and reimagine her world. It is here she locates answers to her many questions.

“I am using paint and, more recently, words to connect and communicate my thoughts. My practice has become a productive, cognitive, and physical activity where I bodily entangle myself in my ideas and affirm my attraction to the curious and everyday”.

 As Chalkie engages with phenomenology and establishes causal connections between her moments of discovery, objects and surfaces emerge that act like talismans, confirming the conversations circulating in her head. This is her Ego Dialogue; here, she can see her answers. This is how she untangles her world, perpetuating curiosity and energy. Through painting, new meanings emerge, revealing further questions to pursue, challenge, and consider.

Floating

In Whitehead’s philosophy: “Theory of Perception” (Hooper, 1944), he writes that according to the ontological principle ‘there is nothing which floats into the world from nowhere.’  This justifies the idea I make to think – it is a way to immerse myself and explore my ideas. I do this as, from my experience, I know that I shall find answers that create new questions. Ideas and solutions will float up.  Notes: Ontological is the philosophical study of being.